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What do Barack Obama, Cynthia Tucker and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) have in common? I’ll tell you a few facts and you decide. I’ll try not to load my words, as Cynthia Tucker did in her Sunday column blasting voter ID laws as the product of “pseudo-facts” and “overhyped allegations of voter fraud.” Readers of my column will, I hope, be outraged by their own thinking, not feelings emanating from pejorative terms. My introduction to ACORN was in the 1990s. When the savings and loan debacle occurred and large numbers of S&Ls had to be...

Red flags on voter records may lead to nothing Tuesday, October 7, 2008 3:02 AM By Mark Niquette THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH DispatchPolitics After new voters in Ohio provide a driver's license number or part of their Social Security number to register, an automatic computer check is done to determine whether that information matches existing state or federal records. But when the numbers don't match, what happens? Virtually nothing. The lack of follow-through has become the latest legal dispute between Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and Republicans, especially with Ohioans able to register to vote and immediately cast an absentee...

The base of the Republican Party — a dwindling but still significant group — clings to a handful of pseudo-facts that don’t hold up to serious scrutiny but that still occupy a central place in GOP ideology. Those include the assertion that Saddam Hussein represented a threat to the United States, that affirmative action in lending led to the mortgage crisis and that voter fraud is a serious problem in modern elections. In campaign seasons such as this, when victory may turn on a handful of votes, none of those claims is more important to Republican activists than overhyped allegations...

This afternoon, my niece accompanied her boyfriend to vote and he was not asked for id. I happened to do a quick google search to research how early voting worked and ran across two other incidents of no id being required. Daily Kos members were sharing their early voting experience and were surprised no one asked for id. Here are the excerpts: Then, you have to fill out another, almost identical "Identity Form." Same deal, provide either the last four digits of your SSN or your entire driver's license number. Since I am a square looking, elderly white guy, they...

TALLAHASSEE -- About 3,200 new voters are in the cross-hairs of Florida's new and controversial ''no-match'' law, which could force them to cast provisional ballots on Election Day if officials can't confirm their identities. The law, designed to prevent potential election fraud and remove joke names from voter rolls -- ''Ricco Suave'' and ''Joe Blow'' among them -- requires local elections officials to mail letters to anyone whose registration information doesn't match the state's driver's license or Social Security databases. Only those who registered after Sept. 8 are affected. Since then, 71,000 new Florida voters have registered through Monday, according...

It used to be much harder to keep track of visitors who came into and out of B.M. Williams Primary School. People were asked to sign their names into a visitors' book in the office, but the signatures often were hard to read, said Principal Craig Mills. Sometimes there would be a last name, but only a first initial. And what if someone gave a fake name? No more. Now, every visitor who walks into B.M. Williams must produce identification for a machine that will record the information, compare it with the national sex-offender registry, then record how long the...

A lawsuit demanding Wisconsin election officials verify voters' identity before the November election could lead to frustration at the polls and exhausted clerks in a hotly contested state in the presidential race. Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's lawsuit, filed Wednesday, demands that the state Government Accountability Board order election clerks to confirm the identities of potentially tens of thousands of voters — and possibly many more — who have registered since Jan. 1, 2006. The work would have to be done by Election Day, Nov. 4. Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi has scheduled a Sept. 19 hearing in the...

‘Jim Crawford’ RepublicansThe GOP is working to keep eligible African-Americans from voting in several states. Jonathan Alter Newsweek Web Exclusive Updated: 2:37 PM ET Sep 11, 2008 It was a mainstay of Jim Crow segregation: for 100 years after the Civil War, Southern white Democrats kept eligible blacks from voting with poll taxes, literacy tests and property requirements. Starting in the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court declared these assaults on the heart of American democracy unconstitutional. Now, with the help of a 2008 Supreme Court decision, Crawford vs. Marion County (Indiana) Election Board, white Republicans in some areas will keep...

TALLAHASSEE — State elections officials will resume enforcement of a controversial state law that requires Floridians to have their identification match up with a state or federal database in order to register to vote. Secretary of State Kurt Browning sent notice to the state's 67 supervisors of elections on Friday that the 2006 law, which has been on hold for the last year pending court rulings, would take effect again Sept. 8. The result is that voters whose identification doesn't match with state files on Election Day will be given a provisional ballot and two days to prove their identity...

Clovis native Rebecca Sitterly registered to vote soon after returning to her native state in 1979 and jumped right into Democratic politics about the same time. So the former Bernalillo County district judge was surprised to get a July 3 call from a community nonprofit that was checking on her new registration. When Sitterly said she hadn't filled out a registration form (indeed, she'd been regularly voting in the same place on Mountain Road NW in Albuquerque for nearly 20 years) a supervisor with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now promised to destroy the card, Sitterly said in...

When Chicago GOP's Tom Swiss alerted IR to the possibility that Cook County was sending voter registrars to a huge immigration rally this weekend, it reminded us of the serious allegations we ran across in 2006. In August of 2006, we first realized the heated nature of registering illegal aliens to vote while working on a registration drive among churches in the 6th CD. When IR questioned a report in the Chicago Tribune about Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-4th CD) encouraging illegals to register to vote, a blog controversy erupted as Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights blasted us for...

Georgia Democrats just can't take no for an answer. Despite a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of requiring voters to produce state-issued picture IDs at the polls, the Democratic Party of Georgia has filed a new lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state's voter ID law. Snip

As the Indiana polls opened at 6:00 am on May 6, opponents of Indiana’s Photo ID law eagerly anticipated word from our more than 5,500 precincts that the state’s requirement that all voters show a photo ID at the polls was causing havoc. It’s what they told the United States Supreme Court would happen. To them, it was time to watch Indiana’s most highly anticipated presidential primary in generations collapse under the weight of the requirement. In Indiana, our election officials and voters are fully committed to increasing confidence in and the integrity of our elections. We have invested a...

In America, you need to show identification to buy alcohol, get into a bar, or apply for a job. Yet, for some reason, liberal media members think that Republicans who advocate voter ID laws do so exclusively to prevent Democrats from going to polling booths.

HARRISBURG -- Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Indiana's law requiring voters to present photo identification, state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe wants to enact the same kind of law in Pennsylvania. The Cranberry Republican has introduced House Bill 2519, which would require anyone wishing to vote to show one of several forms of photo ID when arriving at a polling place: a valid driver's license issued by PennDOT; a valid state or federal government employee ID; a valid employee ID card issued by an employer; a valid U.S. passport, student ID or armed forces ID; a voter ID card...

Cannot be posted due to copyright issues: http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080511/NEWS01/805110367

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote. The measure would allow far more rigorous demands than the voter ID requirement recently upheld by the Supreme Court, in which voters had to prove their identity with a government-issued card. Sponsors of the amendment — which requires the approval of voters to go into effect, possibly in an August referendum — say it is part of an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from affecting...

JEFFERSON CITY — Voters could decide whether to enact a photo ID requirement for voting under a proposed constitutional amendment given first-round approval Wednesday by the Missouri House. Legislators approved a photo ID law in 2006, but it was struck down by the state Supreme Court as a violation of the state constitution. The proposal approved Wednesday would present the idea to voters as a constitutional amendment either in November or in a special election. House members gave the resolution first-round approval on a party-line vote, 89-67. Republicans brought up the proposal after the U.S. Supreme Court said an Indiana...

Indiana's controversial photo identification rule may not have made a major dent in the state's high turnout, but it did frustrate a small group of voters more accustomed to divine law. About 12 elderly Roman Catholic nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph. Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow members of Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, even though they had been told earlier that they would need to get such an ID to vote.

Indiana nuns lacking ID denied at poll by fellow sister By DEBORAH HASTINGS, AP National Writer 8 minutes ago About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph. Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote. The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s,...

Experts say Supreme Court ruling upholding law could disenfranchise minorities, youth and the elderly. Experts say African-American voters — a key constituency of Barack Obama in the primaries thus far — might be disproportionately affected in Tuesday’s Indiana primary by the Supreme Court’s recent decision to uphold the state’s voter identification requirement. Studies show that African-Americans are especially likely not to have the identification necessary to vote on Tuesday. Several other groups, notably elderly voters, disabled voters and young voters, are also more likely than the general population not to have the necessary identification. “The research is pretty clear that...

The Supreme Court's approval of the country's strictest election standards doesn't mean every state should adopt them - The U.S. Supreme Court stamped its approval this week on Indiana's decision to require voters to show photo identification at the polls. Should Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas get in line? Not necessarily. State lawmakers should always be concerned about the integrity of the ballot, decide what can reasonably and fairly be expected of voters and legislate accordingly. But there is no federal mandate to adopt the photo ID, a solution that still seems to be in search of a problem. In his...

The U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling on Indiana's voter ID law will rank as among the court's worst – up there with Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 ruling allowing forced separation of the races. It wasn't overturned until 1954. Here's hoping it doesn't take 58 years to overturn Monday's misguided decision. The Indiana law is aimed at a phantasm: in-person voter fraud at the polls. In the words of the court's majority, "The record contains no evidence of any such fraud actually occurring in Indiana at any time in its history." To find fraud, the justices went back to New...

DO STATE LEGISLATURES have the constitutional right to require voters to provide photo identification to cast a ballot at the polls? That has been a hotly contested issue that the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the affirmative, a 6-3 ruling in an Indiana case. It was the correct decision. Proponents of photo IDs argue that such identification is needed to combat voter fraud, even if it is not proven to be a major problem. Opponents of IDs contend that it is an infringement on voting rights which burdens people with the requirement to provide photo identification. They also say obtaining...

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court -- in a shock 6-3 decision (shocking because Justice John Paul Stevens was on the side of the angels!) -- held that states could indeed require voters to show photo-ID before voting... causing Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY, 90%) to eructate, "This decision is a body blow to what America stands for -- equal access to the polls" (for senior citizens, minorities, and the poor... most of whom, apparently, carry no identification). The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter-identification law on Monday, declaring that a requirement to produce photo identification is not unconstitutional and that the state...

Showing ID to vote? The horror. Seattle Post-Intelligencer runs whiny AP writer's complaint about Indiana voter law What is it with Democrats and showing ID at the polls? This article from an AP national writer certainly doesn't fit any reasonable standard for a wire service. It's just short of a screed, with no balance...just a minor jeremiad against asking people to show ID at the polls: The Supreme Court's refusal to strike down an Indiana law requiring government-issued photo identification at the ballot box could disenfranchise minority and elderly voters at next week's primary and prompt other states to pass...

During a segment on Monday’s "The Situation Room," host Wolf Blitzer and CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena framed the Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana’s "strict" voter ID law according to the liberal view (a law so "strict" that it calls for the voter show photo ID before voting). Arena’s report offered three critics of the decision to only one supporter, who happened to be Indiana’s Secretary of State. One of the three critics was a quadriplegic who apparently "had to pay more than $100 to get documentation to prove who she was" before getting an ID in Indiana. After Arena’s...

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 04/28/2008 Pelosi Statement on Supreme Court Decision on Voter ID Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement in response to the Supreme Court’s decision today on Indiana’s voter identification case: “The Supreme Court’s decision is disappointing. The Court’s decision today places obstacles to the fundamental rights of American citizens—especially the poor, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities—to participate in the electoral process. Requiring American citizens pay for underlying documents needed for an identification card and travel to distant motor vehicle locations for processing hinders—and diminishes—their right to...

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Monday to uphold a strict Indiana law requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls, handing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) a serious setback days before a pivotal primary battle. (snip) Obama, however, will face a significant disadvantage in Indiana because the high court failed to strike down a law that affects two major pillars of support: black voters and young voters. Indiana requires that voters present state or federal government-issued photo identification on Election Day. But a recent study conducted by the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race found that 18...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter identification law on Monday, concluding in a splintered decision that the challengers failed to prove that the law’s photo ID requirement placed an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote. The 6-to-3 ruling kept the door open to future lawsuits that provided more evidence. But this theoretical possibility was small comfort to the dissenters or to critics of voter ID laws, who predicted that a more likely outcome than successful lawsuits would be the spread of measures that would keep some legitimate would-be voters from the polls. Voting experts said the ruling...

Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, Case No. 07-21 http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-21.pdf

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ruled that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights. The decision validates Republican-inspired voter ID laws. The court vote 6-3 to uphold Indiana's strict photo ID requirement. Democrats and civil rights groups say the law would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.

PHOTO ID Double standard on proposed voter ID? Sen. Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) co-introduced Senate Bill 473, which includes this text: "A dealer may purchase nonferrous scrap, a metal article or a proprietary article from any person over age 18 if the dealer does all of the following: 1) obtains photographic identification from the seller or deliverer . . . " This is the same Plale who voted not to allow the voter photo ID amendment to come to the Senate floor. Notice this measure requires a photo ID. I'd like to know why Plale believes people must show a...

Carded at polls: No photo ID, no vote By DEBORAH HASTINGS, AP National Writer1 hour, 40 minutes ago There's the poor, 32-year-old mother of seven who says it would cost her at least $50 to vote in person. There's also the 92-year-old woman who's voted for decades in the same polling place, but now can't vote there because she let her driver's license expire when her eyesight began to fail. These folks live in Indiana, home of the country's most restrictive photo-identification voter law. The U.S. Supreme Court is now scrutinizing whether that statute violates the first and 14th amendments,...

We're used to Democrats saying one thing and doing another, but the hypocrisy that will unfold at some local presidential caucus sites Saturday will surprise even hardened cynics. For decades, Democrats have stood against strengthening voter identification standards at polling sites. Modest identification reforms have been enacted in about half the states, with a handful of them requiring photo identification to prevent election fraud and uphold the integrity of balloting. Although Americans need photo ID to write checks, use credit cards, board airplanes and even collect welfare benefits, Democrats have argued that lower-income and minority citizens are less likely to...

If the U.S. Supreme Court upholds Indiana's harsh voter ID law, as its justices seem poised to do, hundreds of thousands of black Americans should march in protest. So should hundreds of thousands of Latino Americans. Native Americans, too. Political activists from across the ethnic spectrum should convene the biggest political demonstration since the historic March on Washington in 1963. Where is Al Sharpton when a genuinely critical issue comes along? Where's Jesse Jackson? The GOP-led campaign to pass stringent voter ID laws is a greater injustice than the prosecutions of the Jena Six, more significant than the incarceration of...

When I was young, I lived in Chicago. As a college student, I lived in Evanston, Ill., which borders Chicago on the north, and later, as a law student, I lived in the heart of the city itself. Richard J. Daley was the mayor, the Democratic Party ran the city, and vote fraud was accepted as a fact of life. One Election Day, I went to my Chicago precinct voting station, and, while I was in line to vote, a car pulled up outside and parked illegally, and six men got out. There was an ordinary looking driver and five...

Looks like the bedwetters have gotten themselves into quite an ironic pickle. The Supreme Court is deciding on a case of voter ID requirements in Indiana. By now you know the liberal arguments ... it disenfranchises the poor, the minorities, the elderly, blah blah blah. Well it looks like someone didn't do their homework. Faye Buis-Ewing is 72 years old. She has become a "poster child" for the disenfranchised voter that will be protected under a voting system with no ID requirements. But now we've discovered one minor problem. Not only is Faye registered to vote, but she is registered...

Back in the Jim Crow era of the Deep South, many would-be voters were prevented from exercising their rights because they had to pass a literacy test. The tests were enacted to prevent black residents from voting for the candidates of their choice. Because of the discriminatory nature of the tests, the whole system was tossed out after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act required states to ensure that the voting process was fair and open to all Americans. No longer would people have to prove that they could read or write just so they...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A conservative majority of the Supreme Court appeared ready Wednesday to support an Indiana law requiring voters to show photo identification, despite concerns that it could deprive thousands of people of their right to vote. The Supreme Court is reviewing an Indiana law that requires voters to show a photo ID. At issue is whether state laws designed to stem voter fraud would disenfranchise large numbers of Americans who might lack proper identification -- many of them elderly, poor or minority voters. In what has become a highly partisan legal and political fight, the justices wrestled with...

The dispute over Indiana's voter identification law that is headed to the Supreme Court next week is as much a partisan political drama as a legal tussle. The mainly Republican backers of the law, including the Bush administration, say state-produced photo identification is a prudent measure to cut down on vote fraud - even though Indiana has never had a prosecution of the kind of fraud the law is supposed to prevent. The opponents, mainly Democrats, view voter ID a modern-day poll tax that disproportionately affects poor, minority and elderly voters - who tend to back Democrats. Yet, a federal...

Voter turnout among Democrats improved slightly last year in Indiana, despite a new law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, according to a new report that comes months before the Supreme Court hears a case challenging the law. Jeffrey D. Milyo, a professor at the University of Missouri, compared the 2006 midterm elections — the first since Indiana's law was enacted — to the 2002 elections and said voter turnout increased about two percentage points. He said the increase was consistent across counties with the highest percentage of Democrats. "A lot of the claims out there about...

El Paso County Clerk Bob Balink brings up an interesting point, but one that always raises political hackles. If the state is going to require that people be U.S. citizens in order to vote, then it should allow election officials to verify that citizenship, Balink argues. But if the state doesn't want to require a check of citizenship, then the law shouldn't even mention the word in its definition of eligibility. It would make sense, Balink says, to remove it. But Balink doesn't want to remove the requirement. He just wants to be able to check for citizenship. Or else,he...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Republican challenger Greg Ballard has scored a stunning upset in winning election for mayor of Indianapolis. After trailing in polling as recently as last month, Ballard finished his long uphill climb by beating two-term Democratic incumbent Bart Peterson. With 98% of the precincts counted, Ballard had an insurmountable lead of more than 6,000 votes -- a margin of 51% to 47%. Peterson has conceded the election, saying he called Ballard and congratulated him on his victory. Peterson also promised his full support and urged Democrats to rally around the new mayor. Meanwhile, Ballard is calling it a...

Anti-Photo ID Legislation Would Promote Election Fraud, Says Group For Release: November 5, 2007 Contact: David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or dalmasi@nationalcenter.org Washington, D.C. - Legislation introduced by Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) to prohibit photo ID requirements for voting in federal elections would promote election fraud, say members of the black leadership network Project 21. "Representative Ellison's proposal is fundamentally flawed and potentially harmful to the integrity of our democratic process," said Project 21 chairman Mychal Massie. "Why invite that which can only lead to unimaginable fraud and corruption?" Imposing existing Minnesota election law on a national scale, the...

In a challenge to the Bush administration, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., introduced legislation Wednesday that would ban photo identification as a requirement for voting in federal elections. By Kevin Diaz, Star Tribune Last update: November 01, 2007 – 9:37 AM WASHINGTON - In a challenge to the Bush administration, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., introduced legislation Wednesday that would ban photo identification as a requirement for voting in federal elections. Ellison's bill reflects the Minnesota practice, which does not require photo ID for the purpose of voter verification. Ellison has a companion bill that mirrors the state's law allowing eligible voters...

Requiring photo IDs to vote in federal elections would be banned under legislation introduced Wednesday by Rep. Keith Ellison, who said such requirements disenfranchise minorities, the poor, women, elderly and young people. "While photo IDs seem harmless, they are in fact the modern day poll tax," Ellison, D-Minn., said in a statement. Ellison, who serves on the Judiciary Committee, got an important backer for the bill, as the panel's chairman, Michigan Democrat John Conyers, signed on a co-sponsor. Ellison proposed the bill the day after the chief of the Justice Department's voting rights division, John Tanner, apologized at a House...

Today is the first Monday in October -- meaning the U.S. Supreme Court is back in session. At this point, though, there's little on the docket that would drastically alter the landscape for most Americans in terms of property rights, free speech or other issues involving individual liberty and freedom. But that could change if the court agrees to hear a challenge to a case striking down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns...

One of the more clever country song titles I ever heard was If the Phone Don’t Ring, You’ll Know It’s Me.That’s something like the predicament of searchers after the menace of voter fraud, who can’t seem to find much of it. The New York Times today reports that “scant evidence� exists of a significant problem.Voter fraud is the idea that individuals might vote multiple times, in multiple jurisdictions, or despite not being qualified. This is distinct from election fraud, which is corruption of broader voting or vote-counting processes. While voter fraud (and/or voter error) certainly happens, it is apparently on...

The U.S. Supreme Court has announced it will rule on whether or not photo identification can be required to vote. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey conducted during Election 2006 found that 77% of likely voters across the country believe that displaying a photo ID should be required to cast a vote. A Georgia survey conducted last week found that 84% of the state’s voters agree. The Supreme Court will rule on an Indiana case and consider a state law that was upheld by the Appeals Court. The 2005 law has been challenged by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties...